The present invention relates to dietary or therapeutic supplements for improving a person's health and well-being, and to a method for neutralizing deleterious acid conditions that occur when a person ingests foods and beverages in conjunction with therapeutic dietary supplements. As a result, an excessive acid condition in the person's stomach that could interfere with the beneficial effect of the food or beverage is avoided. Dietary and therapeutic supplements such as herbs, and certain compounds known to promote health and well-being are utilized more efficiently in an alkaline environment.
It has been widely accepted that dietary therapeutic supplements are recommended for a variety of the healing properties and for boosting the body's natural abilities to react to disease and protect the body's natural function. It has also been widely accepted that the body functions better with a preferred pH in various systems within the body, such as blood stream, stomach, various organs, skin, etc. The ability of the body to properly digest and utilize various nutrients from food, beverages or from dietary supplements, is directly related to the pH of the body and its various systems.
Many dietary and therapeutic supplements contain directions that they should be taken with a meal. In fact, most doctors, such as those caring for women who might be pregnant, when prescribing such supplements, indicate to the patients that the supplement should be taken with meals. Even when supplements and medicines are taken on an empty stomach with a beverage, the ability to digest and adsorb are normally dependent upon pH stability.
Literature references such as Reverse Aging (Sang Whang), Alkalize or Die (Dr. Theodore Baroody) and Acid and Alkaline (Herman Aihara), indicate that most of the food and beverages ingested at meals generate an acid pH in the body. The body then attempts to counteract acidic conditions by releasing alkaline buffers stored in the body to neutralize pH in the body's various systems to a “normal” range for that system, i.e. blood, stomach, urine, colon, pancreas, adrenals etc. Additionally, the body utilizes any alkaline pH nutrient that is ingested with the meal to balance the pH. However, the naturally occurring buffers in the body are normally inadequate to assure that the utilization environment of the supplement in an individual's body is sufficiently alkaline to protect the active agent of the supplement.
There is a large consumer market for products that include, for example, calcium carbonate and/or magnesium oxide to aid in counteracting the acid pH that results from digestion of foods and beverages, thus causing acid toxic waste in a person's body. Additionally, devices have been provided for consumer use such as machines that produce alkaline water to offset these acid conditions and products have been created to reduce acidity (such as Acid pHree™).
In the Whang (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,306,511 and 5,914,130), the patentee states that the elimination of acid wastes from the body is greatly enhanced through the use of alkaline water and alkaline minerals in the form of sodium and potassium bicarbonate. Additionally, the compositions are indicated to prevent increased acidity in various systems of the body through the use of blood buffers and to aid the body's pH control system from experiencing extreme fluctuations in the pH value. The acid waste is believed by many in the medial community to be the primary or a major contributing factor in certain adult degenerative states in the body such as diabetes and kidney disease.
Whang further asserts in the '511 and '130 patents that by maintaining a blood buffer, and resisting changes in hydrogen ion concentrations, a positive effect is realized by balance and stabilization of the pH in the body. Whang also indicates that it is not only the amount of minerals taken that is a factor, but also the mating or interaction between the minerals that is significant.
In the Hornack U.S. Pat. No. 5,849,346, patentee discloses an additive for beverages which includes potassium hydroxide and a mixture of electrolyte ions such as the alkaline minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium) in various forms (hydroxides, chlorides, carbonates, gluconates, bicarbonates, phosphates, sulfates, chelates, di-phosphates, oxides and stearates). Hornack's additive is said to be useful for increasing the normally acidic pH of the beverage to a value from 9.5 to as much as 14.0 in beverages.